Japanese
foreign policy during the Cold War was largely a response to the memory
of its pre-World War II history. Following the Meiji reforms. Japan sought
to expand into Asia through liberal imperialism and then sought to consolidate
its empire through liberal internationalism. However, when its imperial
designs were rejected by its Western foes and allies alike, Japan-centered
pan-Asianist ideology grew in strength. Japan's imperialist policies before
the Second World War caused irreparable damage in relations with other
Asian nations from Japan. Japanese foreign policy makers have had to deal
with the effects of its prewar policies and develop its foreign policy
largely in the shadow of history.Yet the Cold War also meant that the ability
of Japanese foreign policymaking was severely constrained by the bipolar
international political structure characterized by rivalry between the
United States and the Soviet Union. The United States defeated Japan in
the Second World War and subsequently occupied it. The American occupation
regime sought to destroy Japan's political. economic, and military structure.
Under these circumstances. Japan did not appear to have much choice other
than accepting the terms imposed by the United States; Japanese leaders
also saw them as an opportunity. Partly, this was because two of Japan's
regional neighbors and competitors against which Japan had fought
wars in its imperial history, namely, Russia and China, were in the opposite
camp. Particularly trom the perspective of Anglophile liberals, it was
a tragedy for Japan that these powers had been the allies of the United
States during the Pacific War and now Japan had the opportunity to be closer
to the United States. Hence Japan "embraced its defeat" and set out to
benefit trom the Cold War and liberal international economic system as
a close ally of the United States. I

While the military
defeat of Japan did not lead to a change of political system, it ushered
in a new period in Japanese history. Japan came under the first foreign
occupation in its entire history. The basic parameters of Japanese foreign
policy emerged in the context ofthis occupation. Japan was a country without
a military power, and there was no desire among Japanese elites or demands
by the public to change this fate. There were different views in Japan
on how to respond to this new era with a different interpretation of Japanese
history. On the left side of the political spectrum, the Socialist and
Communist Parties, supported by leading intellectuals such as Masao Maruyama
and Ikutaro Shimizu, believed that any involvement in military ventures
could lead to hyper nationalism and war. In their opinion, Japan's destiny
was to be a "peace nation," with neutrality in the Cold War. This would
make Japan a role model that would inspire the world through its principled
renunciation of war as a tool of foreign policy devoted to the principle
of unarmed neutrality.2 On the conservative side, there was the dispute
of the two groups of liberal conservatives led by Yoshida and the right-wing
conservatives led by Kishi. To the right, the competition was between two
factions of conservative politics:liberal conservatives (Yoshida School)
and the right-wing conservatives (Kishi School). Unlike the left, these
two conservative groups shared a similar perspective of economic development
and considered the alliance with the United States in positive terms. From
the perspective of Shidehara, Yoshida, and other liberal internationalists,
the alliance with the United States reminded them the Anglo-Japanese alliance
system (1902-1923), from which Japan had greatly benefited. From the perspective
of right-wing conservatives like Kishi, who served the prewar political
establishment in top positions, Japan's traditional anti-communist stance
would be better served by an alliance with the United States. However,
they differed in the way Japan could utilize this alliance.Liberal conservatives
led by Yoshida sought to utilize the U.S.-Japan alliance as a security
umbrella under which Japan did not have to remilitarize and thus was able
to follow a developmentalist orientation with a minimal military role.
A strong alliance with the United States would enable Japan to focus on
the expansion of markets in the East and Southeast Asia. Japan had to be
a merchant nation (shonin kokka) without having to worry about its security
in the context of the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Security Treaty. This strategy
known as the Yoshida Doctrine shaped much of Japan's Cold War foreign policy.
Right-wing conservatives, on the other hand, sought to utilize the Cold
War framework and American security dependence on the Japanese islands
as an opportunity to bargain for an increase in Japan's military capabilities
and regional power. The initial postwar American approach to Japan and
East Asia aimed to reduce Japan's military capabilities and in this context
Americans preferred working with liberals. However, soon the security needs
of the United States in East Asia changed as its basic attention has shifted
to the Soviet Union and its ally China as main contenders. Consequently
the United States reversed its perception of Japan and began to demand
it to assume a larger military role in their alliance formation.
However, the liberal conservatives did not accept this change in Japan's
postwar role, forcing Americans to seek a new friendship with the old guards
who were their enemies just a few years earlier. Hence the early Cold War
political history of Japan was characterized by an interplay among the
United States, liberal conservatives and the old guards.

The U.S. Occupation
of Japan and the Return of Liberal Conservatives

Following its
surrender in the Second World War, Japan remained underAmerican occupation
until 1952, when it gained its formal independence. The occupation regime
found the liberal elite of the 1920‘s as their natural ally. These elites
were happy to get rid of Japan's militaristic political system and also
because they saw that territorial integrity of Japan was largely maintained,
and Russia, Japan's primary historical geopolitical enemy, was excluded
from the occupation of Japan. The American occupation and the alliance
with the United States, they believed, would bring Japan back to the liberal
period of 1920s. In the mind of Anglophile Japanese liberals, the successful
alliance with Britain before and during the First World War had to serve
as a model for Japan's foreign policy after the Second World War. In their
opinion, it was a tragic mistake for Japan to fail to renew this alliance
then, and now the alliance with the United States was another opportunity.In
the initial stages of the postwar era, the Allied powers who shaped the
new world system agreed unanimously that Japan, like Germany, had to be
prevented from ever becoming a military force. American war and peace policy
toward Japan in the 1940s was led by the aim of eradicating "the evil.“3
Hence, the American occupation authority, Supreme Command for the Allied
Powers (SCAP), dictated a pacifist foreign policy on Japan by dismantling
its war-making capacities and by dissolving its economic, social, and political
structures.4

The Japanese
armed forces were almost entirely demobilized and the remaining artillery,
warships, and aircraft were destroyed. At the time of the occupation, the
Japanese economy was dominated by major industrial and business conglomerates,
zaibatsu, which functioned as business empires embracing dozens of corporations
in the field of manufacturing, trade, and finance. They were owned and
controlled by individual families. Four major zaibatsu (Mitsui, Mitsubishi,
Surnitomo, and Yasuda) that had roots in the social upheavals of the Tokugawa
era and six new zaibatsu (Asano, Furukawa, Nissan, Okura, Nomura, and Nakajima)
that emerged only after the Russo-Japanese war were accused of sponsoring
and profiting from the war. In 1945, ten combines together controlled 49
percent of capital invested in mining, machinery, ship-building and chemicals,
50 percent of capital in banking, 60 percent in insurance, and 61 percent
in shipping.s The Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers General MacArthur
wanted to dismantle these companies altogether. However, before they were
totally destroyed, Americans changed their basic strategy and initiated
"the reverse course." Eventually, only the families owning these companies
were removed from their ownership and the zaibatsu system reemerged as
keiretsu business groupings. Their vertically integrated chain of command
with a owner family in control transformed into a more loosely and horizontal
relationships and association.It was the Cold War that compelled the United
States to change its basic threat perceptions about Japan as was the case
with Germany. Americans now considered its war time ally Russians and the
Chinese as the primary source of insecurity.

Consequently,
they altered their views concerning their old foes, Japan and Germany,
and began to see them as allies against new foes who were their old allies.
Tn the postwar world, the Soviet Union was the only truly independent nation
alongside the United States. Japan and Gennany were both within the geographical
reach of the Soviet Union and it was therefore imperative for the United
States to deny the Soviets their still potent power.6 Subsequently, Americans
reversed their initial strategy of dismantling economic power of these
countries and embarked upon a project of rebuilding them.The Japanese were
also happy that the occupation of their country was monopolized by the
United States and carried out in a different way from that of Germany.
Quite significantly, Emperor Hirohito remained in his throne albeit as
a humanized figure and was not subjected to trial process for war crimes.
In an secret cable to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the army chief
of staff, General MacArthur, characterized the emperor as a symbol which
united the Japanese and warned that his indictment would lead to serious
problems including even an armed resistance against the occupation and
eventually a communist take-over.7 To cope with the ensuing chaos in the
event of the indictment of the emperor, MacArthur declared that he needed
at least a million troops and several hundred thousand imported civil servicemen.8
Brigadier General Elliott Thorpe who advised keeping the emperor stated
that because otherwise we would-had nothing but chaos. The religion was
gone, the government was gone, and he was the only symbol of control. Now,
I know he had his hand in the cookie jar, and he wasn't any innocent little
child. But he was of great use to us, and that was the basis on which I
recommended [to] the Old Man (MacArthur) that we keep him.9

Similarly Yoshida
Shigeru noted in his memoirs: The General [MacArthur] had come to have
a great respect for the Emperor, and even told me once that, although Japan
had lost the war, the Throne was still important to the Japanese people
and the reconstruction of Japan depended on the people rallying to the
Imperial symbol...I have no hesitation in saying that it was the attitude
adopted by General MacArthur towards the Throne, more than any other single
factor, that made the Occupation an historic success.10 In a way, by acquitting
the emperor, the occupation regime aimed to save itself from popular resistance
and Japan from chaos and allegedly from Communism.However, inasmuch as
the emperor represented the nation and symbolized national unity, his exoneration
also symbolized Japan's exoneration from war responsibilities. Only twenty-five
Japanese military officers were abdicated as Class-A war criminals and
seven of them were sentenced to death by hanging. The Japanese bureaucracy
and state system were largely kept intact. Practically, exoneration of
the emperor symbolized institutional continuity of Japan and thus prevented
Japan from sharing the same fate with Germany.As a former navy serviceman
put this quite succinctly, "even the emperor gets away without taking responsibility,
so there is no need for us to take responsibility, no matter what we did."l1
Emperor Hirohito's famous New Year's rescript in 1946 formally titled "Rescript
to Promote the National Destiny" but commonly known as the Declaration
of Humanity especially in the Western media actually stressed political
continuity of Japan by tracing the origins of democracy to the Meiji emperor.
In his new year address to the Japanese nation, Hirohito stressed the union
of democracy and monarchy since the Meiji period.He explicitly referred
to Charter Oath of 1868, an oath that the Meiji emperor had sworn to Amaterasu
Omikami as setting the foundations of constitutional monarchy in Japan.
12

As Bix states,
"in effect, Emperor Meiji, dead since 1912, was now made the founding father
of the political system about to be born in 1946.“13 By declaring continuity
with the Meiji past, he meant that there was nothing new under the Sun.
Hence the pan Asianist era between the Meiji and the American occupation
was being framed as an aberration ftom the long history of the union
of democracy and monarchy. Interestingly the emergence of Japanese imperial
policies had its roots in the Meiji RestQration, and by claiming roots
in the Meiji history, the postwar Japan was never able to conftont this
history. The Meiji era philosopher Fukuzawa Yukichi who articulated the
shift of civilizational identity reincarnated in the form of a picture
on Japan's ten-thousand yen banknote. The new Japanese elite who came ftom
the liberal background considered this new political situation advantageous
to their interests. The first prime minister of Japan after the war, Shidehara
Kijilro, who had been the minister of foreign affairs throughout the 1920s
and had served as the ambassador of Japan to the United States between
1919 and 1922, was known for his noninterventionist policies toward China
and strong relations with Britain and the United States. While liberals
including Shidehara considered the Sino-Japanese relationship as critically
important for Japanese interests, they regarded the military intervention
as advocated and practiced by the Japanese military and militarist leadership
as counterproductive. Instead, in the interwar period, Shidehara and others
advocated reliance on good relations with the United States and Britain
in order to expand Japan's sphere of interests in Asia. In this regard,
Japan had to pursue coexistence with the Soviet Union, even though Shidehara
detested the Soviet interests in Manchuria. 14

Not surprisingly
Japan's cautious and deeply Anglophile foreign policy orientation in the
1920s had come to be known as the "Shidehara diplomacy," gradually with
negative connotations as used by his increasingly militarist rivals. After
taking part in the London Naval Conference in 1930, which imposed naval
disarmament and tonnage ratio between Britain, the United States, and Japan,
Shidehara and his approach to foreign policy had become the prime target
of the militarists. Following the Manchurian Incident which led to increased
militarization of politics, Shidehara had kept himself out of politics,
as a result of his disillusionment with Japan's increasing militarization.
Hence this liberal and pro- Western political background of his made him
an ideal choice for the American occupation regime as the interim prime
minister of Japan. However, Japan's first postwar elections were conducted
in 1946; Shidehara's Progressive Party was defeated by the Liberal Party
led by Yoshida Shigeru, who had served as Shidehara's foreign minister.
Yoshida who came from a similar liberal background as Shidehara subsequently
emerged as Japan's most influential postwar politician, setting the basic
parameters of Japanese foreign policy for many decades to come.

Like Shidehara,
Yoshida Shigeru was a highly influential member of the prewar liberal elite.
His mindset was shaped in the liberal currents of the 1920s and the experience
with prewar militarists prior to the Pacific War. In the 1930s, he was
Japan's ambassador to Italy and the United Kingdom. In 1939, he retired
from politics, as a result of his disillusionment with the increasingly
militarist government in Tokyo. Towards the end of the war, in 1944, he
was sentenced to a prison term for defending antimilitarist views. He served
as prime minister between 1946 and 1954, interrupted only by the period
between May 1947 and October 1948. During his tenure as prime minister,
Yoshida shaped Japan's basic foreign policy orientation and left a lasting
legacy in Japanese politics.

With Yoshida,
the liberal conservative political elite returned to politics as the right-wing
conservatives were purged by the SCAP. Consequently, the Japanese state
identity became strongly oriented in favor of close relations with the
West, particularly the United States. Although it can be argued that Japan
had no other choice but to submit itself to the United States as an occupied
country in an unfriendly Asian neighborhood, Anglophile outlook was in
fact deeply rooted in the identity of the liberal conservative Japanese
leaders. Identity conflict at the top of Japanese leadership predated American
occupation and now Japan's defeat in the war .proved to be a victory for
the Anglophile political elite. As Yoshida once noted, "history provides
examples of winning by diplomacy after losing in war.'.l5

By remaining
at the helm until 1954, Yoshida shaped Japan's postwar identity as a nonmilitarist
and trade-oriented country. Yoshida was a prewar liberal but a postwar
conservative politician. However, his liberalism should be understood in
the context of the Meiji era liberal imperialism. He adopted the famous
Meiji era motto of "rich

country. strong
army" (fUkoku kyohei) and modified it to a different context. His doctrine
called for a strong economy first in order to build a strong country .
Yoshida considered the era of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as his ideal,
as this alliance had allowed Japan the opportunity of economic development
and expansion of its sphere of interests into Asia through agreement with
the dominant Western power of the time. Yoshida realized that under the
current U.S. hegemony, the U.S.-Japanese alliance appeared to offer similar
advantages to Japan. He commented on this in his memoirs:That Japan should
have achieved a leading position among the nations of the world by pursuing
her policy of alliance with Great Britain and friendship with the United
States throughout the Meiji and Taisho periods, and then discarded that
traditional diplomatic policy and chosen to throw her lot with the distant
Axis Powers was not only a major strategic blunder but an action all the
more regrettable in that it destroyed the trust placed by other countries
in Japan as a nation. Recovery ftom this historic 'stumble' will require
years to complete, but it is the task before my nation today and it exceeds
all others in importance. Japan cannot allow the work of our great national
leaders of the Meiji and Taisho periods, who were the architects of modern
Japan, to remain, as it now is, in ruins.16

Yoshida's remarks
on relations with the United States suggests that the alliance was not
only an arrangement the United States imposed on Japan, but it was, in
fact, deeply rooted in traditional strategic thinking of the liberal, Anglophile
political elites: Japan's policies vis-a-vis the United States must change
as the nation's economic position improves, with the subsequent strengthening
of the country's international status and self-respect, and such a change
is already seen to be occurring. Yet the maintenance of close bonds of
ftiendship with the United States, based upon a deep mutuality of interests,
must be one of the pillars of Japan's fundamental policy and always remain
so.17

Similarly Akira
Iriye notes:[the] idea that postwar Japan must link itself to the rest
of the world, not through arms but through cultural and economic relations,
seems to have been widely shared at that time- But it would be wrong to
say that it was an idea forced upon the Japanese by the occupation authorities.
Rather, it may be argued that an undercurrent of cultural thought that
had been suppressed in an earlier, more nationalistic and pan-Asianist
climate was being unleashed in the new international environment. For,
at bottom, the culturalism of postwar Japan assumed that the Japanese people's
salvation lay in becoming 'global citizens' (as the newspaper, Asahi, noted),
parting with a narrow nationalism or pan-Asianism. The path of universalism,
rather than particularism, or of internationalism rather than nationalism,
provided the ideological starting point for postwar Japanese foreign policy.18

Yoshida devised
a master plan for the postwar economic development of Japan.This postwar
grand strategy aimed to concentrate on economic development without minimal
military commitment. Yoshida's personal experience with the old military
elite before the war probably contributed to his outlook. Rather than developing
a Japanese military power, Yoshida considered the American military presence
in Japan in the Cold War international context as an opportunity for achieving
this goal. The Japanese economy, which was totally shattered and exhausted
during the war, was now being revived with the help of the very country
that had destroyed it. Japan found what it was looking for so desperately:
capital for its economic development in addition to access to markets and
raw materials in Asia. All these were now provided through alliance with
the United States in the new security environment after the war. On the
other hand, for Japan,Russia represented an old foe, and it was advantageous
to have the U.S. backing to counter perceived Russian ambitions in Asia.
In other words, Japan had lost a war but came to like its consequences.
In this regard, liberal and right-wing conservatives did not disagree.
Their strongest disagreement was over how to benefit from the alliance
with the United States to advance Japan's interests.Thus to the enjoyment
of the liberal conservatives including Yoshida, the American occupation
government in Japan, SCAP, carried out comprehensive educational and administrative
reforms which nevertheless adhered to the red line drawn around the imperial
house. SCAP drafted Japan's postwar constitution, which provided Yoshida
with a golden opportunity for concentrating on economic development without
having to deal with security problems. Article 9 of the new Japanese
Constitution explicitly banned remilitarization: Aspiring sincerely to
an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat
or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to
accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces,
as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of
belligerency of the state will not be recognized.Many considered Article
9 as a quid pro quo for retaining the Emperor. As the emperor himself was
seen by the Allied powers as being responsible for Japan's aggressive behavior
before the war, the clause weakened their arguments in favor of abolishing
the throne. While the exact rationale behind this American-imposed war
denouncing clause might be unclear, it was obvious that the United States
soon had to start pressuring the Japanese to remove it. Since 1947 when
the postwar Constitution was approved, Washington has tried to convince
Tokyo that they should remove the clause. General McArthur himself suggested
that the idea was given to him by Prime Minister Shidehara. This would
not be surprising, as Shidehara and Yoshida liked the idea of a U.S.-security
umbrella without Japan's assuming any military responsibility.

One of the principal
objectives of Yoshida's foreign policy was to avoid becoming too deeply
involved in U.s. global and regional Cold War strategy. When asked his
opinion about the "no war" clause, Yoshida told that "it was the greatest
thing the United States could do for Japan, because now the nation could
turn to rebuilding while depending on America for her defense.“19 However,
it could be argued that Yoshida was not a pacifist ideologically and that
his liberalism very much reflected his realistic assessment of Japan's
options within the postwar constraints. As explained by Takeshi: Yoshida
was not a pure pacifist. Rather, his interpretation reflected his analysis
of Japan's current position as an occupied nation.. ..Yoshida was a power
politician who represented a state that lacked power, for Japan at the
time had only the potential to exercise power at some uncertain point in
the future.20 A similar point is made by Pyle:Yoshida was too pragmatic
and non-doctrinaire to allow his views to be so simply characterized. He
himself never spoke of a "Yoshida Doctrine" and we can only conjecture
at the ways he might have taken issue with the subsequent policies of the
so-called Yoshida School. He was too proud and too much of a realist and
nationalist to accept the implication of a politically and diplomatically
passive Japan as a corollary of his policies.21

The Yoshida
Doctrine, as drawn from Yoshida's practice and as applied by his followers
such as Ikeda and Sata, was highlighted by a number of foreign policy ideas:
Japan's economic growth should be the prime national goal. Political economic
cooperation with the United States was necessary for this purpose. Japan
should remain lightly armed and avoid involvement in international political-strategic
issues. To gain a long-term guarantee for its own security, Japan would
provide bases for the US Army, Navy and Air Force.22

As security
of Japan was granted by Americans, the Japanese could concentrate on their
economic prosperity. This was more than welcomed by Yoshida and like-minded
liberal Japanese leaders. The 1940s and 1950s witnessed a strong Japanese
economic recovery backed by the acceptance of its products in the U.S.
market. The United States took a number of measures to facilitate the reconstruction
of the Japanese economy, not only opening its mvn markets to Japanese products
but also forcing the European colonial powers to open their colonies in
South and Southeast Asia to Japanese competition.23 The United States secured
Japanese participation in the international economic system, by providing
Japan entry into the international economic system; Japan became a member
of the IMF, the GATT, and other international organizations despite initial
European opposition? For many years, Japan was a free-rider economically
as well as militarily, while the United States also enjoyed a :tree ride
on Japanese territory. Japan had access to American markets by closing
its own to foreign products, leading to a steady economic growth rate.
Initially this one-sided beneficiary position of Japan was tolerated by
the United States because of Japan's importance for American security policies
in the Pacific. However, soon after the United States changed its position
and started to demand greater Japanese contribution to the alliance. Yet
the United States was unable to break the resistance of Yoshida and his
like-minded students in Japanese politics.

The Yoshida
government persistently resisted American pressures for its rearmament
by referring to Article 9 of its American-imposed constitution. Besides
the logic of economic development, from the Japanese perspective, the lack
of a Japanese military power was necessary to mend relations with Asian
nations. Interestingly, the announced purpose of the new Sino-Soviet alliance
was not countering the U.S. motives in Asia but rather deterring a resurgence
of Japanese imperialism and militarism.28 It appeared that both countries
considered the possibility of Japan's rearming itself more threatening
than the military presence of the United States in Japan. Yoshida and others
always believed that a militarized Japan would inevitably invoke historical
memories of Asians and create further complexities for Japanese foreign
policy. This tenet of Japanese postwar foreign policy as devised by Yoshida
came to be challenged by a former key member of the prewar militarist government
whose postwar comeback was made possible by the increasingly frustrated
United States.

Return of the
Old Guards

SCAP purged
members of the prewar Japanese government as well as those of the wider
political and intellectual elite. However, the initially tough attitude
of the Americans towards the former leadership was muted as soon as it
became clear that the United States needed a strong Japan in the context
of the Cold War to-serve as a "bulwark against Communism." The "reverse
course" (gyaku kosu) began with the increasing anticommunist policies of
both the Japanese government and SCAP in the period between late 1947 and
the beginning of 1950s.29 In this anticommunist political climate, democratization
and de-militarization processes were postponed in favor of a movement towards
remilitarization and twisting the antimilitarist constitution to suit goals
of remilitarization. A series of regressive and authoritarian policies
such as the prohibition of strikes and demonstrations led to a popular
fear that Americans would bring back the dictatorship to secure their security
needs. De-purging of Kishi coincided with this change of political climate.
Having totally disarmed Japan, the United States reversed its policy and
de purged some members of the prewar political system, the most important
of whom was Kishi Nobusuke. Kishi was no outsider to the pan-Asianist imperialist
political establishment in the 1930s and 19405, since he had served as
a new bureaucrat in Japanese government's economic planning in the 19305,
and then as an administrator in Manchuria between 1936 and 1939. Eventually,
he became Minister of Commerce and Industry under the Tojo Hideki cabinet.
Following the resignation of Tojo, he was appointed deputy minister of
Munitions. After the war, however, he was imprisoned as a Class-A war criminal
suspect but not tried for three years. Class-A category designated twenty-five
military and political leaders as convicted by the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East. These were the elites of the imperial political
establishment. As Kishi would later concede, ''the development of the Cold
War saved my life. . . . it was the U.S.-Soviet discord that led to my
release from prison."30 Kishi became prime minister only five years after
being released from prison. In 1941, he had cosigned the decision, as a
member of the wartime cabinet, to declare war against the United States.
Only sixteen years later, in 1957, he was described by Richard Nixon as
"not only a great leader of the free world, but also a loyal and great
friend of the people of the United States." In the context of the Cold
War, such differences could be resolved with no difficulty. Anti-Communism
became the new American ideology and American security needs required a
friendly and stronger Japan: it was more than what Kishi could have asked
for.

On his release
from prison, Kishi formed his own political party, the Japan Reconstruction
Federation, around a number of former members of a prewar conservative
party Minseito. Since he was still banned, he made former Foreign Minister
Shigemitsu Mamoru its nominal leader. Its goals were anti-Communism, deepening
ofties with Asia, promotion of small and medium-sized industries, deepening
of U.S.-Japan economic relations, and revising the Constitution. He raised
hundreds of millions of yen from industrialists, mainly the defense-industry,
with whom had ties going back to the prewar era. His influential contacts
such as Fujiyama Aiichiro, a famous businessman and politician before and
after the war, provided Kishi an enormous financial capital to build what
one biographer has called an "exquisitely institutionalized" system of
money politics (seichi na kozoka).31 However, after his party failed miserably
against Yoshida's Liberal Party in 1952, Kishi understood that he had to
fonn an alliance with other parties. He first flirted with joining the
Socialist Party, but his brother Sato Eisaku convinced him to join the
Liberal Party of Yoshida. Although Yoshida did not want to accept his former
prewar political enemy, Kishi was able to bring substantial fmancial resources
to the table thanks to his close links with the industrial and business
circles. Kishi won his first Diet seat in 1953 as a result of this alliance.
Soon after Kishi started undennining the position of Yoshida within the
party by forming his own faction and by constantly criticizing Yoshida
for being soft against the Americans and calling for Japanese military
and economic planning. Kishi, intellectually inspired by Kita Ikki in the
prewar years, was an ardent national socialist with a firm beliefin central
economic planning. In 1953, Kishi formed his own political party, the Democratic
Party, in alliance with other anti-Yoshida factions within the Liberal
Party.

Yoshida had
retained his position as prime minister in three consecutive elections
held in 1949, 1952, and 1953. However, under pressure coming from the Democratic
Party as well as from Americans who lost their hopes with him, Yoshida
resigned in 1953, and Democratic Party chairman, Ichiro Hatoyama, became
prime minister. However, the real power struggle was still between Kishi
and Yoshida. Hence the center right platform of Japanese politics was highly
fragmented and characterized by personal as well as ideological conflicts
between these two politicians. Meanwhile, previously disunited fractions
of the socialist party agreed to unite, posing now a serious threat to
the dominance of the conservatives. Americans were clearly worried
about another socialist election victory after the 1947 elections as a
result of splits in the conservative platform. Consequently under their
pressure, the Liberal and Democratic parties merged under the name of Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955. This was an uneasy union of opposing personalities
and schools of thought in center-right politics, laying the foundations
of the faction system within the party. Since then the LDP has become almost
synonymous with Japanese politics, as the party has governed the country
for more than four decades. Reflecting its foundation as a merger of two
political parties and charismatic leaders, more specifically Yoshida and
Kishi, LOP has represented a diverse range of viewpoints, which became
institutionalized as factions (habatsu). These factions have been more
than groupings of interest-oriented

politicians.
Factions have been like schools in themselves with distinct views on domestic
and international politics. It would also be incorrect to trace the origins
of LOP factions simply to the establishment of the LOP in the postwar era.
Rather their genealogy can be traced back to the Meiji era in the political
movements of the time. Because of the LDP's hegemonic dominance in Japanese
politics, intraparty rather than interparty politics and cleavages have
been more salient for shaping political debates. But Identity politics
in Japanese foreign policy is noticeable not only between rival political
parties but also and more significantly among rival factions within the
LOP. These factions essentially have been "parties within a party.“32

Kishi became
prime minister in 1957 one year after losing a party presidential elections
to Ishibashi Tanzan, commonly regarded as a genuine liberal Asianist who
"never embraced either the symbols or the substance of the wartime ideology.“33
Before the war, Ishibashi, who was an influential journalist and economist,
was strongly detested by the militarist regime because of his advocacy
of the idea of "Small Japan" and Japan's withdrawal from Manchuria. In
1955, he joined the LDP and, with the support of the liberals, won its
presidential elections against Kishi. Ishibashi's election was made possible
by a new party presidential election system which required absolute votes
of Diet members rather than negotiations (hanashiai) among party elders.
Clearly the votes that Ishibashi obtained indicated that dominant groups
in the LDP, like opposition parties and much of the electorate, did not
want Japan to militarize and become involved in U.S. global and regional
strategies as Kishi represented just the opposite view. Kishi was favored
by the United States because of his willingness to enlarge Japan's role
within the U.S.-Japan alliance system. Consequently, the Eisenhower administration
engineered and basically fmanced his comeback to the center of Japanese
politics and his election as prime minister in 1957.34 One of the ways
the United States financed Kishi was through the M-fund. Named after U.S.
Major General William Marquat, the fund's initial overseer, M-fund was
built through the sale of surplus military material in order to provide
Japan a Marshal] Plan-like financial capital to fund economic and political
development and was said to have an asset base worth $35 billion by 1960.
Presumably in their 1957 Washington meeting, Vice President Nixon gave
the control of M-fund not to the Japanese government, but to Prime Minister
Kishi personally in order to secure Tokyo's secret financial support for
his campaign in the presidential elections.35 Immediately after assuming
power, Kishi found himself in the politics of revision of the U.S.-Japan
Security Treaty in 1960. The old treaty gave the United States the right
to suppress anti-American movements within Japan through force, but it
did not oblige the United States to protect Japan against foreign threats.
The revised treaty that Kishi negotiated with Americans removed this internal
role for the United States and gave it a more balanced and mutual tone
with a U.S. pledge to defend Japan. However, although arguably this was
a more balanced alliance for Japan, it provoked the most violent protest
movement (An po) ever seen in postwar Japanese history. Demonstrations
erupted against Kishi's undemocratic way of passing the treaty in Diet.36

Kishi handled
the domestic crisis heavy-handedly, increasing the public anger towards
militarism that he came to be associated with. The protests were so intense
that they forced U.S. President Eisenhower to cancel his scheduled visit
to Japan. During this time, both the Japanese and U.S. governments accused
the protesters of being communist agents. American media sharply criticized
their Japanese counterparts as a mouthpiece of communists because of their
relative sympathy towards these protests.37 Although the treaty passed
in the Diet, Kishi resigned as a result of demonstrations and his growing
unpopularity. Nevertheless, his political influence continued within the
LDP.

Yoshida and
Kishi Schools: Divergent Policies toward Asia

During the greater
part of the Cold War period, Japan's relations with East Asia were an extension
of its relations with the United States. Japan was able to pursue its policies
toward East Asia to the extent that these were in tune with overall U.S.
foreign policy. For instance, until the Nixon shocks, Japan did not recognize
the PRC. In order to compensate for the loss of mainland China as a source
of raw material and as a market for Japanese products, Japan turned its
face towards U.S.-friendly Southeast Asia. In the words of Pharr, by playing
a complementary role to the United States in preventing the rise of communism,
"Japan received license to rebuild its economic strength in Southeast Asia.“38

As discussed
above, Yoshida considered strong relations with East Asia, particularly
China, to be essential for Japan's economic interests. As Welfield notes,
in the prewar period, Yoshida had believed that Japan's national interests
required the creation of an extensive, Western-style empire in Asia comprised
of Korea, Manchuria, and Mongolia. In his opinion, the support of the United
States was absolutely important for expansion of the Japanese sphere of
interest in Asia.39 In contrast to the pan-Asianist

line of thinking
in prewar era, Yoshida had doubted that Japanese ambitions in Asia could
be realized in opposition to the British and Americans: "Yoshida had therefore
considered that Japan should go about building its Asiatic empire in a
way that would not offend the Anglo-Saxons.“40 In this regard, unlike
those of Shidehara who was largely viewed as more genuinely liberal, Yoshida's
Anglophile views were instrumental. Yoshida himself acknowledged
that he belonged to "the clique that makes use of Britain and the United
States.“41 In this regard, while supporting normalization of relations
with Beijing, he nevertheless acquiesced to the U.S. demands. After concluding
the peace treaty with the United States, Yoshida was very much interested
in developing diplomatic relations with China. In an opinion piece he wrote
for Foreign Affairs magazine, Yoshida asserted that "Red or white, China
remains our next door neighbor. Geography and economic laws will, I believe,
prevail in the long-run over any ideological differences and artificial
trade barriers.“42 He tried to convince the Americans to try to detach
China from its alliance with the Soviet Union. However, he failed to do
so, particularly in the context of the Korean War. Eventually Yoshida gave
up his hope of convincing Americans about China. In the famous "Yoshida
Letter" addressed to Dulles, written by Dulles himself,43 Yoshida promised
that Japan was completely in tune with U.s. policy regarding the question
of China: "I can assure you that the Japanese government has no intention
of concluding a bilateral treaty with the Communist regime in China.“44
Thus, under pressure from the United States, Japan recognized the Chiang
Kai-Shek regime in Taiwan and signed a peace treaty with Taiwan in April
1952. Until Japan recognized mainland China, it had to deal with the reality
of "two Chinas." However, Japan's position on this issue was very different
from that of the United States. Japan's China policy had to be made under
the shadow of history. As Yoshida maintained, "because of the history of
Japanese expansion into Asia where aggression and colonization proceeded
side by side, Japan lost its legitimacy as an independent strategic player,
encouraging it to see its relations with China and Taiwan in fundamentally
non-strategic ways.“45 Kishi Nobusuke, on the other hand, pursued an
extremely anticommunist foreign policy. As a young and aspiring economist
in the prewar years, he had been an admirer of Asianist and national socialist
philosopher Kita Ikki. Under Kita's influence, Kishi thought "Japan's historic
mission was to defend East Asia from those two most nefarious manifestations
of twentieth century Western civilization, Russian Bolshevism, and Anglo-American
capitalism.“46 However, as prime minister in the postwar era, he emerged
as a realist. His options were severely restricted by the Cold War system
and the necessity of the alliance with the United States. Within these
constraints, he focused on noncommunist Southeast Asia rather than China.
As a staunch anticommunist, he was hostile to warm relations with the Soviet
Union and China. Synchronizing Japan's foreign policy fully with
that of the United States, Kishi believed that "Japan had no alternative-to
active participation in an economically integrated politico-strategic alliance
with the United States and the countries of non-Communist Asia.“ 47

In the period
after World War II, Kishi became the first Japanese prime minister to visit
the noncommunist Southeast Asian countries and went as far ahead as proposing
a "Southeast Asian Development Fund." Yoshida had criticized the idea of
foreign aid and reparations arguing that "you have to trade with rich men;
you can't trade with beggars.“48 Kishi, however, had a different opinion.
He saw reparations as a useful means of entering Southeast Asian markets.
He referred to the language in the various peace treaties allowing reparations
to be paid "in the form of capital and consumer goods produced by the Japanese
industries and serviced by the Japanese people." This way he was able to
provide Japanese industries access to markets, and of course industrialists
had been his close political allies since the prewar era. For instance,
in a case that was the most controversial, Kinoshita Trading Company was
given a contract to provide ships to the Sukarno government in Indonesia.
The company's owner Kinoshita Shigeru was a metals broker in Manchuria
before the war, where he had built his ties with Kishi. Such ties continued
even after their return to Japan in the late 1930s. After the war, Kishi
had worked for this company as its president after his release from prison,
before he was de purged and allowed to return to politics.49 Kishi negotiated
reparations agreements with Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia,
and Cambodia. As noted by Samuels, Kishi's use of Southeast Asian and Korean
aid seems to have insuired Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei who exuanded reparations
to China and Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro who applied it to other parts
of the region. 50 The bulk of the reparations payment, which totaled $1,152
million in damages and $737 million in loans, was in the form ofnonrepayable
economic and technical cooperation, thus enabling Japan to develop markets
of its own in Asia.51

However, due
to his strong anticommunism and despite his dislike for private property,
Kishi firmly opposed to any normalization of relations with China. He gave
first priority to relations with the United States and with the U.S. backing
on Japan's relations with Southeast Asia. He did not see any contradiction
with his previous anti-American and pan-Asianist views. As Welfield explains:[Kishi
believed that] the United States, as the dominant Western power, was Japan's
logical choice for an alliance partner, the security treaty the natural
successor to the Anglo-Japanese relationship and the Tripartite Pact. Provided
the American-Soviet Cold War continued unabated, a reconstructed Japan
might eventually be able to establish itself as the residuary legatee of
the Pax Americana, in much the same way as the Anglo-German conflicts during
the first part of the twentieth century had facilitated its emergence as
the heir to the British Empire in the Far East. Kishi's strong and continuing
interest in conservative pan-Asianism is probably to be interpreted in
this context. 52

Yet Kishi failed
to convince both Southeast Asians and the Japanese public about his scheme
for economic cooperation with Southeast Asia.53 Kishi encountered huge
protests in his visits to Southeast Asia, and his way of handling domestic
opposition against renewal of the U.S.-Japan security treaty made him a
controversial and highly disliked politician at home. Nevertheless, he
had a massive and long-lasting impact in Japanese politics. Although anti-Western
pan-Asianism did not return to Japan, he was able to combine pro-Western
(pro-U.S.) and Asianist approaches.

Japanese Foreign
Policy after Yoshida and Kishi

Departure of
Kishi and Yoshida from Japanese politics did not mean the end of their
influence. As a matter of fact, Japanese politics from this time on functioned
in practice as a battle between students of Kishi and Yoshida. between
the nationalist and the liberal conservative fractions within the LDP.
Both groups competed with each other under the LDP's faction system. The
foreign policy of Japan during this time was highly influenced by the factional
identity of the prime ministers. Under Yoshida and his students, Japan
pursued a course of economic development in order to achieve great power
status. The Yoshida Doctrine, which demanded minimal military commitment
in order to maximize economic development, was the basis of this strategy.
Kishi's students, however, sought to give back to Japan its political and
military role, utilizing its alliance with the United States who was just
as willing as them to do the same. However, because of the dominance of
the Yoshida School, Kishi's influence was confined to the background. Kishi
was replaced by Ikeda Hayato, who was a disciple of Yoshida. With this
change, Yoshida line was back in power. Ikeda served as prime minister
between 1960 and 1964. Perfectly applying his master's foreign policy doctrine,
Ikeda fulfilled his bold promise of doubling Japan's national income by
the end of 1960s in half of that time. The economic success alone ensured
that the LDP would be in power for much of the postwar era. This success
also ensured that the Yoshida Doctrine became Japan's primary ideology
of the Japanese state and Japan's national consensus. After the resignation
of Ikeda in 1964, Kishi's younger brother Eisaku Satd came to power. Despite
being Kishi's brother, Sato was politically and ideologically close to
the Yoshida line. He followed Ikeda's policies stressing economic growth
and resisting militarization. His foreign policy record included most importantly
reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty from the American control
in 1972. In effect, the island was a military colony of the United States,
even after Japan's formal independence. Mainland Japanese citizens could
travel to Okinawa but Okinawans needed to obtain a special visa in order
to travel to the rest of Japan. In exchange of reversion of sovereignty,
Sata agreed that the American military bases could stay on the island.
This decision was not accepted by many Okinawans who opposed both the American
bases and the reversion to Japan. The problem remains unsolved.

In addition,
in 1967, Sata enunciated his famous Three Non-Nuclear Principles, that
include the ban on the possession, transit, and stationing of nuclear weapons
in Japan. These principles that were eventually approved by the Diet on
November 24, 1971, have shaped Japan's nuclear stance until this day. These
principles stated that Japan would not manufacture or possess nuclear weapons
and would not allow their movement into the country. Japan would rely on
nuclear deterrence offered by the United States. Its security provided
by the United States, Japan could become an economic power without a commensurate
military dimension. In order to convince the United States to extend its
nuclear protection to Japan, Sata initially appeared to be interested in
gaining Japanese nuclear capacity. Yet it is now believed that he bluffed
his way through to get the U.S. promise of nuclear protection for Japan.54
Sata's approach to foreign policy was based on the notion that historically
"whenever Japan took a path counter to the United States it suffered; and
whenever the two countries worked together closely, Japan prospered.“55
In 1974, Sata received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against nuclear
weapons and signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. An important
challenge for both the Ikeda and the Sata governments was the Vietnam War
which proved to be a hard case for Yoshida's students. The Ikeda government
introduced geographic limitation on the scope of the alliance with the
United States in order to avoid involvement in the Vietnam War. However,
rapid economic development in Japan encouraged calls for building a parallel
military might. The ambitious Defense Agency Director General and the future
Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro mobilized support in the Diet to double
Japanese military spending with a new five-year defense plan (the fourth
plan or Nakasone Plan) in 1970. In this, the Japanese Defense Agency departed
trom the pattern of incremental build-up established under the first three
defense build-up plans and asked for a major expansion of Japan's defense
capabilities, particularly its maritime power. The plan stipulated that
the Japanese Self Defense Forces should be able to cope independently with
"limited, direct aggression" by securing air and sea control around the
country. It called for a doubling of the Japanese fleet from 142,000 to
320,000 tons within a decade with a provisional budget estimated at between
5.7 and 6.5 trillion yen. 56

Sato's popularity
suffered significantly trom the decision taken by Nixon to visit China,
a decision that caught the Japanese government totally unprepared, Sato's
U.S. centric Japanese foreign policy suffered a major shock when it was
announced that U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger would visit
Beijing to convey to the Chinese the intention of President Nixon to visit
China. Nixon eventually visited China in February 21,1972, with a move
that shocked the Japanese who closely followed the American lead in making
Japanese policy regarding China. For many years, the Japanese had isolated
themselves from Beijing and recognized Taiwan because the United States
told them to do so. However, the Nixon administration did not consult Japan
about its plans to recognize the Communist regime. It was a major shock,
which apparently helped Tanaka Kakuei's ascent to power. In the atmosphere
following the Nixon shock, Japanese public opinion turned decidedly in
favor of relations with China and strong anti American feelings emerged.
In turn, Sato cabinet was discredited, as was Sato's preferred candidate
for prime minister position, Fukuda. Tanaka, on the other hand, was known
for his willingness to develop close relations with the Chinese and maintain
a distance from the United States. He was a reform-minded politician, and
unlike other politicians before and after him, he lacked powerful roots
in the Japanese political establishment. He did not belong to the traditional
Tokyo political elite, most of whom had their strong family backgrounds
dating back to the Meiji period and had studied at Tokyo [Imperial] University.
In fact, Tanaka did not have an education beyond the primary school and
thus was regarded as an underdog and impossible candidate for the position
of prime minister. He was originally from Niigata prefecture in northwestern
Japan, a historically isolated part of the country in both geographical
and political senses. He moved to Tokyo as a teenager and formed a construction
firm, which became successful during the Second World War, and his business
connections helped his eventual rise in politics.

In 1972, Tanaka
became prime minister in the context of international financial crisis
precipitated by the decision of Nixon to cancel the U.S. dollar's gold
convertibility and Nixon's visit to China (two Nixon shocks). Due to Tanaka's
appearance as a reform minded leader both in domestic and international
politics, these shocks were helpful for him. He pursued the normalization
of diplomatic relations with Beijing and achieved doing so in September
1972. Japan announced that it understood and respected the Chinese position
on Taiwan and, in turn, China waived demands for reparations for wartime
atrocities. Tanaka resigned from his post as a result of a corruption scandal
that involved the sale of aircraft by Lockheed Corp. in 1974. Yet he continued
to be an influential figure within the LDP ranks.

Nakasone Yasuhiro,
who was a navy officer during the Second World War, entered the Diet as
a member of House of Representatives in 1946. He served as Minister of
Science in 1959 under the Kishi government. Later, he was Minister of Transport,
served as Director General of JDA in 1970, Minister of International Trade
and Industry in 1972, and Minister of Administration in 1981. Eventually,
he became prime minister in 1982 and remained in power until 1987. Even
after this date, Nakasone exerted influence over Japanese politics as a
regular member of Diet until he was finally excluded from the candidate
list by Koizumi in 2003 as a part ofKoizumi's attack on the LOP old guard.
Nakasone was a skilled politician of the caliber of Yoshida, Kishi, and
Tanaka. As for his factional membership, Nakasone was a member ofKono faction
in the 1960s. Kono Ichiro (1898-), chief of the faction, was truly a pan-Asianist.
He thoughtthat Japan's future lay not with the United States but with an
independent Asian community comprised of developing noncommunist nations.
57 Kono never had a chance to become prime minister, but his lieutenant
Nakasone did. Nakasone's rise in politics was also made possible by his
close link with the "retired Emperor" Tanaka who continued to exert influence
over Japanese politics long after his resignation in 1974. Tanaka's influence
over Nakasone was so deep that his cabinet was called "Takas one cabinet."
Nakasone's election in 1983 as LOP president and Japan's prime minister
coincided with the rise of nationalism in Japan. In November 17, 1984,
Asahi Shimbun reported that a majority of Japanese believed themselves
as superior to Westerners. The percentage of people who believed so was
only 20 percent in 1953.58 This was probably an effect of the Japanese
economic development record and the resulting sense of self confidence.
This new rise of Japanese national pride was expressed among other ways
through Nihonjinron (theory of Japaneseness) discourse, which emphasized
Japan's positive distinctiveness and difference from the rest of the world.
The historical context in which nationalist discourse had reemerged in
Japan have to be examined in order to fully appreciate the urgency of the
question of national identity. Nihonjinron was a reincarnation of the kokusuishugi
school in the nineteenth century which put emphasis on Japan's distinctive
cultural characteristics. During the 1930s when Japan was confronting the
West this ideology was expressed by philosophers associated with the Kyoto
School. Japan's defeat and its subsequent occupation by the United States
led to a defeatist culture. However, Japan's phenomenal success in economic
development reinforced feelings of national superiority while failing to
completely fill the vacuum. As noted by Nakamura Masanori, "the grand tale
of Japan as an economic superpower and the world's most stable political
system has already lost its power of persuasion over Japanese citizens.“59
A cuituralist interpretation of Japanese identity was an acceptable form
of nationalism in the postwar era. In a way, with Nihonjinron literature,
the Japanese began to discuss what it meant to be Japanese. The basic argument
was that Japanese culture and people are seeking for an identity that could
express the Japanese self against the Western Other to which it was tied
so strongly since the Meiji and then once again since the Second World
War. As discussed by Befu: The popularity of Nihonjinron in postwar Japan
is a consequence of Japan's inability to exploit effectively the most important
symbols which express national identity and nationalism. By these symbols,
I refer to the imperial institution, the 'national' flag, the 'national'
anthem, the 'national' emblem, and national monuments and rituals.60

As Iida argues:
while nihonjinron was initially motivated by Japanese curiosity about themselves,
it became increasingly infused with bitterness and ftustration as American
Japan-bashing gathered momentum, and eventually developed into a breeding
ground for narcissistic and exclusionary nationalist voices. It was on
this ground that historical revisionist claims began to emerge denying
the fact of Japan's W orId War II invasion of Asia. These contrary cultural
inclinations of 'postmodernism' and nihonjinron together constituted a
bifurcated manifestation of the troubled state of Japanese modernity in
the 1980s.61 The end of the Cold War provided another impetus for the emergence
of the identity question. One of the most influential nationalist works,
Japan That Can Say No (No to Ieru Nippon) by Ishihara Shintaro and Morita
Akio appeared in 1989 and sold over two million copies. In this work, the
authors called for a more assertive Japanese foreign policy.62 Interestingly
Morita, then chairman of Sony, was the coauthor; he distanced himself from
the book and would not allow his part to be translated into English due
to its bad reputation in the United States.63 Nakasone's tenure as prime
minister (1982-1987), in a similar way as Turkish Prime Minister and later
President Turgut Ozal (1983-1992) coincided with the last decade of the
Cold War system and both of them had to respond to the pressing question
of how to define an identity for their nation that could respond to the
challenges of the post-Cold War era. Nakasone was the only prime minister
in the postwar Japan who had had a prewar military career and also served
after the war as director general of IDA. Among his critics. there were
fears that Nakasone intended to end the Yoshida Doctrine. Eliminate postwar
barriers to militarism, such as the Article 9 of Japanese Constitution,
the threenuclear-principles of Sata, and the ceiling on defense expenditures
of 1 percent of GNP established in 1976. These fears were sometimes provoked
by Nakasone himself who repeatedly stated that he would like to bring about
a "general settling of accollits concerning postwar politics.“64

Nakasone's discourse
and policies occasionally provoked fierce response in other countries.
His comments on racial diversity in the United States were particularly
provocative. He stated that Japan's economic success was because it did
not have ethnic minorities like the United States. He then clarified his
point: he meant to congratulate the United States on its economic achievements
despite the presence of "problematic" ethnic groups. Nakasone thought that
it was necessary to give Japan a political identity in international relations
and a global vision. Unlike the members of the Yoshida School, Nakasone
believed that economic progress did not solve the postwar identity crisis:
A large number of Japanese today have a feeling that the nation is plWlging
more deeply into a period of crisis and confusion such as ha~ never been
experienced before... . There is worry as to what is going to happen to
Japan, an Wleasy sense that perhaps the nation has already reached an impasse,
that growth may be over, and decline imminent.65

For him Japan's
identity question could be addressed by replacing the "Yoshida Doctrine"
with a "new liberal nationalism" through identity transformation or a "transformation
of national consciousness.,,66 He advocated the internationalization (kokusaika)
of Japan, which in practice meant Japan's assuming a global role with an
activist agenda both in Asia and internationally. The Yoshida Doctrine
was not the answer for Japan's search for identity. Nakasone declared kokusaika
as his doctrine by announcing Japan as kokusai kokka Nihon (Japan as international
nation) during his address to the Japanese Parliament in 1984. He stated
that Japan's peace and prosperity could not exist without world peace in
a deeply independent international society and therefore Japan should become
international due to its rising status in international society and growing
expectations of other countries toward it. In other words, as Mayumi Itoh
suggests, kokusaika implied that Japan should playa more active global
role commensurate with its economic power.67

Many critics
of Nakasone did not share the interpretation that he embraced nationalism
as a liberal and cosmopolitan ideal.68 For these critics, kokusaika did
not imply Japan's opening itselfto international cultures but rather making
Japanese culture international. As Ivy claims, "instead of opening up Japan
to the struggle of different nationalities and ethnicities, the policy
of internationalization implies the opposite: the thorough domestication
of the foreign and the dissemination of Japanese culture throughout the
world.“69 Similarly Kazukimi Ebuchi observes that "to internationalize"
is used by most Japanese dictionaries as a passive verb, indicating the
process of becoming accepted by the rest of the world (sekai ni tsuyo suru
yo ni naru koto), while it is used in English as a transitive verb.70 In
contrast to kindaika (modernization), which was Japan's ideology during
the Meiji era and then much of the postwar period under Yoshida Doctrine,
kokusaika reflected a desire to build self-confidence in Japan's relations
with the world. In this sense, there was no contradiction between nationalism
and internationalism. Japan could internationalize only to the extent that
it gained a self confidence and an identity. In Nakasone's formulation
this new ideology, kokusaika, had three major dimensions:

1. A renewed
national pride in Japan's culture and history.

2. An international
economic and political role for Japan.

3. Opening of
Japan to the world and the world to Japan through cultural and educational
programs. 71

The first component
was a direct challenge to the "shame" culture in Japan that had become
prevalent following the Second World War. Nakasone's visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine in 1985 was designed to build a renewed confidence and pride in
Japan's history. The shrine is controversial partly due to its honoring
fourteen executed Class-A war criminals as indicted by the International
War Tribunal. Ironically the shrine was once regarded to be the symbol
of modernism and egalitarianism during the Meiji era Samurai soldiers.
In the postwar era, it was the symbol of right-wing nationalism. Right-wing
nationalists consider the shrine to be the symbol of Japan's historical
identity. Although other prime ministers in the postwar era had visited
the shrine, Nakasone was the first to do it in his official capacity. The
visit was interpreted by his domestic critics as an attempt to cast Japan's
wartime era in a favorable light. China and Korea issued strongly-worded
protests against Nakasone, after which he did not repeat his visits. No
Japanese prime minister repeated the visit in his official capacity until
Koizumi. Nakasone paid his visit to the shrine in the face of strong demands
from the families of war casualties as well as because of his personal
experience in the Second World War as a naval commander who lost people
under his command.72

The second component
required a more active diplomacy and reversion of the Yoshida Doctrine,
which minimized any international political role and required dogmatic
adherence to Japan's war-denouncing constitution. Nakasone attempted to
scrap the 1 percent limit on defense spending in the 1986 budget but this
attempt failed in the face of strong opposition within the LDP. Again there
was strong American pressure on Japan to scrap this ceiling. 73 Nakasone
came to embrace the idea that Japan was an Asian power. He built strong
relations with the ASEAN countries which he visited in 1983. In contrast
to his predecessors who preferred bilateral relations with Southeast Asian
nations. Nakasone discussed multilateral issues with ASEAN leaders and
attempted to project an Asian voice in May 1983 at the Williamsburg economic
summit meeting.74 In a speech in Kuala Lumpur in May 9, 1983, Nakasone
stated that there would be "no prosperity for Japan without prosperity
for the ASEAN countries" and that Japan's policy of economic cooperation
with ASEAN would be given top priority. He pledged yen credits of 67.5
billion to Indonesia, 67.36 billion to Thailand, 65.05 billion to the Philippines,
as well as 61 billion to Malaysia, which was announced during former Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammed's visit to Japan in January.75 As these
credits were denominated in yen, it was an attempt to create a yen block
in Southeast Asia. More interestingly, Nakasone proposed "Friendship Programme
towards the Twenty-First Century," which was aimed at inviting over three
thousand young Asians to Japan over a span of five years. Under this program,
Japan invited Asian delegations with the aim of forming a close link with
the Japanese younger generation. 76

Benefiting from
the U.S. position against the expansion of Soviet influence in Asia, he
utilized foreign aid as a tool to expand Japanese interests. He sought
to increase military spending and Japan's participation in international
institutions. However, his approach to the United States was basically
similar to Kishi. Together with his foreign minister, Abe Shintaro, son-in-law
of Kishi and father of Abe Shinzo, Nakasone realigned Japanese foreign
policy more closely with the United States. In this regard, Nakasone did
not deviate ITom the conventional postwar Japanese foreign policy. However,
he was a sharp critic of Yoshida Doctrine that called for minimal military
and political role. Nakasone, on the other hand, followed Kishi's steps
in attempting to utilize the U.S. alliance system in order to project a
greater Japanese political and military role in world politics. Although
most attempts by Nakasone to scrap the Yoshida Doctrine failed in the face
of opposition within his own party, he managed to bring the identity question
back to the agenda. Nakasone foresaw in the 1980s that Japan's low-profile
international political role despite high-profile international economic
role would not meet the demands imposed by a changing world order. His
calls for a new search for identity influenced a new generation of politicians
who firmly believed in the concept of "normal power" ifutsu no 'ami). The
new international system that came to replaced the Cold War era would require
political commitments from Japan. The new challenges, most precisely the
Gulf War of 1991 confirmed their ideas.

The Gulf War
of 1991: The Collapse of the Yoshida Doctrine

The Gulf War
was Japan's first major test in the post-Cold War era. The United States
actively called on Japan to contribute militarily to the UN coalition that
fought the Gulf War. However, Japan's choice was to stay away from the
conflict. Japan pledged $16 billion on pressures by the United States but
did not mobilize its Self Defense Forces for active duty. Prime Minister
Kaifu conducted an extremely low-profile diplomacy.Particularly controversial
was the cancellation of his visit to the Middle East before the war, fearing
that he "could offend Iraq" and endanger the lives of Japanese citizens
trapped in Iraq and Kuwait, a move which was criticized both by Japanese
and American officials. Although Japan moved to a more active position
by sending four minesweepers to the Gulf following the war, it gained almost
no attention.Japan's financial contribution to the Gulf War covered a substantial
part of its total cost to the United States, calculated to be $61 billion
by the U.S. Congress.77 Despite this, Japan's contribution was neglected
both by the United States and perhaps more importantly by the oil-rich
countries of the Gulf. Many in Japan were shocked to see their country
having been excluded from the list of countries to which Kuwait sent "thank
you" letters. American officials and public opinion as well expressed anxiety
about the ability of the Japanese government in responding to international
crises beyond Japan's own political, legal, and financial restraints.78
Michael Armacost, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, argued: "During the
Cold War, the U.S. took care of issues that came up on the horizon, while
Japan took care of raising the level of financial support to US forces
in Japan. The Gulf War was traumatic. Japan found that it could no longer
ignore the new international issues that had emerged after the Cold War.“79
A Japanese foreign ministry official comments that "In terms of how traumatic
and formative an experience it was, the Gulf war was the Vietnam for Japanese
diplomats,"80 Japan's policy in the Gulf War was in striking contrast to
its later decision to deploy Japanese troops in Iraq, even though the Gulf
War was a United Nations effort and enjoyed full international legality
and legitimacy. What explains this difference?

As Inoguchi
explains, three major factors shaped Japan's policy during this crisis:
(1) uncertainty and anxiety, (2) historical learning, and (3) self-confidence.81
The first two are important for my purpose. The following is largely summarized
:trom Inoguchi unless noted. Japan could not easily adapt to the new international
system in which there was no superpower rivalry. During the Cold War, Japan's
foreign policy was centered around its alliance with the United States,
which decreased in importance after the Cold War. Its territorial disputes
with the Soviet Union remained as well as Soviet nuclear capabilities in
the Pacific remained. This made Japan particularly uneasy about the post-Cold
War international system. Furthermore, the premature decline of the United
States was undesired for Japan, because there was no other country to take
up the leadership in maintaining the stability ofthe international political
and economic system. Meanwhile, Japanese public opinion remained consistently
in favor of a strictly economic role for Japan. More than two thirds of
those surveyed in Japan in different polls believed that the Japanese contributions
to the global community should be restricted to a nonmilitary
rolein conformity with its pacifist constitution. The public believed that
Japan had to focus on commercial activities and seek to make its contributions
to the global community in financial, technological, and scientific fields.
(In other words, Japanese public opinion remained firmly supportive of
the Yoshida Doctrine.)

Furthermore
Japanese political culture, as a reflection of its history, was skeptical
of its ability to mobilize military power in foreign terrain. Japan had
failed miserably in its attempt to obtain for itself a place in world politics
through the use of military force. In contrast, the focus on economic development
since 1945 had been successful in bringing about peace and prosperity.
The legacy of history was also linked to Asian suspicions about the resurgence
of Japanese military ambitions. The mobilization ofSDF in international
operations would only fuel such suspicions because of the memory of the
past. Japan also used this argument to eschew any military contribution
in its alliance with the United States in order to maintain the Yoshida
doctrine. "The debt of history has operated as a constraint on Japanese
diplomacy. Whether Japan is constrained happily or unhappily is somewhat
difficult to tell.“82

But also, since
Japan had countered the previous oil shocks through diplomacy and confidence
in its economic competitiveness, it was not convinced that it really had
to mobilize troops and be more involved in the crisis in order to avoid
significant economic consequences. The Gulf War left a lasting legacy on
the mentality of Japanese foreign policy makers and became a useful analogy
for those who were calling for Japan's return to normal power status. The
Gulf War behavior of Japan was clearly influenced by the Yoshida Doctrine
that had worked well during the Cold War. It became clear, however, that
the same policy line did not sit easily in an international system where
U.S. expectations of Japan had changed. As Eugene Brown asserts:The first
major crisis of the post-Cold War era thus left Japan smarting over what
it saw as the world's lack of understanding of its efforts. For a nation
chronically anxious about what the rest of the world thinks of it, the
experience was a singularly painful and bitter one. The Gulf crisis marked
a major turning point in Japan's relations with the outside world. Its
most immediate legacy was to intensify the debate among Japanese o~inion
leaders and policy elites over the nation's appropriate international role.
3

Conclusion

Japan was a
defeated country after the war. It came under U.S. occupation. The u.s.
occupation government under General MacArthur initially sought to destroy
Japan's remaining economic and military power base. The goal was to make
sure that Japan would not emerge again as a threat. The United States brought
members of the old liberal elite including Shidehara and Yoshida to positions
of importance. These liberals disliked the old military regime and defended
the view that Japan should concentrate on economic development with minimal
security role by relying on the United States. This strategic logic, known
as Yoshida Doctrine, agreed with the terms of occupation. However, inception
of the Cold War soon changed the opinion of the United States towards Japan.
The United States now saw that a weak Japan was a liability in a region
dominated by the Sino-Soviet alliance. Instead, a stronger Japan as an
ally of the United States could create a balance. Soon a second stage of
American occupation started the "reverse course." Liberals, most notably
Yoshida, did not like this change of policy and resisted the idea of remilitarization
of Japan. Hence the United States turned its face to members of Japan's
prewar political elite, including Kishi who was virtually taken out of
prison despite his status as a Class- A war criminal. The entire purging
as well as the war crimes trial process after the execution of fourteen
Class-A war criminals was ended. The United States sponsored unification
ofliberal and right-wing conservatives under one party, the LDP. However,
this created two rival factions within the same party, Yoshida and Kishi
factions. and led to the emergence of faction system within the LDP. In
1957, Kishi became prime minister. In 1960, he revised the security treaty
with the United States and resigned following protests against his undemocratic
manners of passing the revised treaty in the Diet. With his resignation,
Yoshida's disciples returned to power and continued to rule the country
for much of the Cold War period. Yet, despite his brief political tenure,
Kishi continued to exert a great deal of influence behind scenes. Nakasone
followed Kishi's steps to trying to utilize the U.S. alliance instrumentally
in order to return Japan to a prestige of great power. Nakasone called
for the end to the Yoshida Doctrine and returning to a normal power status
with a military and political power commensurate with its global economic
role. Nakasone saw that Yoshida Doctrine failed to provide the Japanese
nation with a strong national identity. As a result. much of Nakasone's
efforts to scraD the Yoshida Doctrine failed. but he succeeded in bringing
the issue of Japanese national identity back to the agenda.

The Gulf War
in 1991 gave further support to those Japanese who shared Nakasone's concerns.
Japan could not send troops to the war but instead covered a substantial
part of its cost. However, it received the treatment of a country who basically
did not raise a finger for the liberation of Kuwait. After the war, when
the Emir of Kuwait sent letters of appreciation to countries who contributed
to the war, Japan was excluded. As the Japanese valued relations with the
Gulf countries because of its oil dependence on the region, this was a
shocking incident. Kishi's students in Japanese politics would capitalize
on this traumatic incident in order to campaign for a return to normal
power status.

4 Note that
"SCAP" has been used to refer not only to the entire occupation authority
but also to the commander of the occupation authorities, General Douglas
MacArthur. In this text, SCAP is used to designate the Occupation authority.

5 Dower, Embracing
Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, 530. Also see T. A. Bisson,
Zaibatsu Dissolution in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1954).

6 Dower, "The
U.S.-Japan Military Relationship," 3.

7 Embracing
Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, 324.

8 Ibid., 325.

9 Ibid., 327.

10 Shigeru Yoshida,
The Yoshida Memoirs: The Story of Japan in Crisis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1962),50-51.

27 Chihiro Hosoya,
"From the Yoshida Letter to the Nixon Shock," in The United States and
Japan in the Postwar World, ed. Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen (Lexington:
The University of Kentucky, 1989), 24.

70 Kazukumi
Ebuchi, "Kokusaika no bunseki shiten to daigaku Shihyo settei no kokoromi"
(The Concept of Internationalization: A semantic analysis with special
reference to the internationalization of higher education), Daigaku Ronshu,
18 (1989): 29-52, quoted by David L. McConnell, Importing Diversity: Inside
Japan's Jet Program (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 271.

71 According
to Pyle, Nakasone's foreign policy vision or what he calls his "grand design,
[w]as comprised of four dimensions: (1) a new vision of Japan's future,
(2) global leadership by remaking Japan into an "international state,"
(3) formation of a new liberal nationalism, (4) an active role in strategic
affairs. See Pyle, "In Pursuit of a Grand Design: Nakasone Betwixt the
Past and the Future."

77 $54 billion
of the total cost was covered by other countries in the coalition. Two-thirds
of this was provided by the Gulf countries and more than $10 billion was
provided by Japan. United States Department of Defense, Conduct of the
Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Defense, 1992).